Discover how a wellbeing audit can help you uncover and plug the gaps in your current employee support strategy
In the latest Holding It Together report published by the Employee Assistance Programme Association, a staggering 640,250 people accessed their Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) in 2022 alone. Of this number, 434,250 (68%) were offered dedicated counselling sessions. This means that approximately 1.8 million sessions were provided overall.
However, when it comes to supporting employee wellbeing in the workplace, there certainly is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This is because, within a diverse workforce, individuals will have a unique set of needs, circumstances, and preferences brought about by a number of personal factors.
With health issues, family responsibilities, work environments, cultural backgrounds, relationships, and financial pressures all contributing to an employee’s wellbeing, it’s vital to create an inclusive and flexible strategy to cater to everyone’s needs – before the point of need.
But how do organisations know where the gaps are within their wellbeing strategies, and who do they turn to to fill them?
I believe the answer lies in HR, Occupational Health, and business leaders working with their EAP providers in a more consultive way. The bottleneck to this solution is that many of us are too busy to explore the detail of what needs to be fixed or understand what works well within our businesses to keep employees emotionally, physically, and financially fit and well.
Because business moves at such a fast pace, I wanted to find a way of taking a snapshot in time around how employees were feeling about their wellbeing and where they felt the gaps were. Are we doing all we can to ensure our employees feel heard? Are we demonstrating they are valued?
We approached Govox to answer these questions and identify these gaps across multiple businesses consistently. Govox has built a robust wellbeing audit that asks some very simple questions which demonstrate where the gaps are within the four pillars of wellbeing:
The results were nothing short of incredible. Generating a 50+% response rate, the audits provided business leaders with a clear message around what's working and what isn't. This allowed them to create a wellbeing strategy using the information their teams had provided: not what the senior management had been 'sold'.
“We at Milewood Healthcare are an established provider of forward-thinking living services for adults with disabilities in England, with over 45 homes throughout the UK.
Our organisation employs over 750 people based across various locations. One of our biggest challenges is ensuring our employees are fully engaged and supported in their wellbeing.
We decided to complete Vivup’s Wellbeing Audit to help us:
- Gain a measurement of staff engagement with organisational communications
- Understand our people’s current wellbeing needs
- Gauge employees’ awareness of the employee benefits available to them
Given that many of our staff don’t have frequent access to work email, we were delighted to receive a 40% completion rate of our audit. The results not only provided us with some key findings about our current wellbeing support, but also generated suggestions for additional support and enabled us to assess the viability of putting these measures in place.
It was evident that staff who had accessed our diverse wellbeing services welcomed the offer. However, it also showed that there is a need to publicise the offer more effectively to ensure we are maximising the full potential of our wellbeing services.”
Dan Blackith – Head of People & Culture Milewood Healthcare
If you’re interested in trying our complimentary wellbeing audit yourself and uncovering the gaps within your business, get in contact with us today. In doing so, you’ll be empowered by the most up to date and accurate information you will have ever seen regarding the wellbeing of your employees.
We will send you a report and offer some suggestions, but you don't need to use us as your provider because, quite honestly, that's not the point. The point is, we want your employees to have the best possible experience while they're at work. This insight will allow you to offer that, regardless of whether you use Vivup, Your Care, or any other organisation.
Investing in a wellbeing audit is not just a box-ticking exercise on your current practices; it is a strategic and quantifiable move towards a happier, healthier, more productive workforce – and one that you can make today.
